Reports on the Grammarians.” He also extracted a volume from Abū Hayyān’s Quranic commentary, which he entitled The Gleaned Pearl from the Encircling Ocean, confining it to Abū Hayyān’s discussions with Ibn Atiyyah and al-Zamakhsharī.

He was born in Dhū al-Hijjah 682 AH and died during the widespread plague in Ramadan 749 AH(1).

2—Umm Abd Allah Zaynab bint Ahmad ibn Abd al-Rahīm ibn Abd al-Wāhid ibn Ahmad al-Maqdisiyyah:

Syria’s leading authority in hadith transmission, a righteous shaykh and distinguished hadith scholar. She was humble, virtuous, and noble-hearted, and she never married.

She transmitted a great deal. Students thronged around her and read the major works to her.

She was gracious in character and unfailingly patient; they would sometimes study under her for most of the day.

She was known for her contentment, restraint, generosity of spirit, and excellent character. One of her eyes had been afflicted with ophthalmia in her youth.

She became the sole surviving transmitter of several major works. With her death, people lost one degree of elevation in their chains for a great many hadiths—enough to fill a camel-load. She was the last person in the world to narrate by authorization from Sibt al-Silafī and a group of others.

She heard from Muhammad and Abd al-Hamīd, the two sons of Abd al-Hādī; Ibrāhīm ibn Khalīl; the preacher of Mardā, Muhammad ibn Ismāīl ibn Ahmad al-Maqdisī; and Abd al-Rahmān ibn